The new research, published in the journal Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, revisits data collected years ago for an earlier study. The data arose from blood testing done in 2011 and 2012 at a now defunct laboratory as part of routine clinical assessments.
Large data set
The study assessed data from more than 44,000 blood samples. The samples were stratified via their Omega-3 Index, a measurement pioneered by one of authors, William Harris, PhD. Harris, who founded the testing firm OmegaQuant Analytics, is now the head of the Fatty Acid Research Institute. His coauthors, Michael McBurney, PhD, and Nathan Tintle, PhD, are also members of the institute as well has having other academic affiliations, as does Harris.
The authors discarded the top 0.5% and the lowest 0.5% Omega-3 Index samples (about 450 samples in total) as outliers. They also excluded those which showed high levels of CRP (C reactive protein), a measure of acute inflammation associated with a disease state. That got rid of approximately 15,000 more samples.
That left 28,871 blood samples for the final analysis, in which the authors looked at the interplay of Omega-3 Index values and the various ratios of neutrophils to lymphocytes (NLR) found in the samples.
Balancing the immune system players
Neutrophils are constituents of the innate immune system, which also includes phagocytes, dendritic cells, macrophages, eosinophils, basophils, mast cells, and natural killer cells. This is the standing army, so to speak, of the immune system. Neutrophils are the most numerous soldiers in that army.